Popping the Question: The Question of Popular Culture Issue 4 – Spring 2015 | www.diffractions.net Popping (it) Up: an Diana Gonçalves exploration on popular culture and TV series Universidade Católica Portuguesa | Research Center for Supernatural Communication and Culture Abstract | Supernatural is a TV series created in 2005 that draws inspiration from urban legends, folklore and mythological tales to tell the journey of two brothers who hunt monsters, ghosts and creatures from the underworld in an apocalyptic scenario. This article intends to explore Supernatural as a reflection of/on the present time, its main concerns and practices. First, it analyzes the show as part of a post-9/11 culture that is deeply affected by the events of 2001 and the underlying sense of terror. Even though the show privileges the horror genre as a framework to deal with 9/11-ensued fears and anxieties, it also brings into play many other genres that blur its categorization and reproduce today’s fast pace and fluidity. Second, the article looks at how the show integrates and has been integrated into contemporary pop culture. Supernatural is known for pushing the boundaries, communicating with other cultural products, self-referencing and interacting with the audience, thus fostering an active interchange between the show, pop culture products, different media, and viewers. The article therefore understands Supernatural as both a cultural manifestation and a manifestation of culture, a product that impacts popular culture and is, in turn, impacted by it. It investigates how the present social, cultural and political context in America has influenced the creation of the series and its plot, and how the use of popular culture references, which pop up regularly throughout the show and create a sublayer of meaning the viewer must decode and interpret, has become a distinctive characteristic of the show and a key factor for its success and durability. Keywords | Supernatural, popular culture, television, TV series, America, (post-) 9/11, (post-) apocalypse Get your motor runnin’ Head out on the highway Lookin’ for adventure And whatever comes our way Steppenwolf, Born to be Wild And I’m goin’ down All the way I’m on the highway to hell ACDC, Highway to Hell The Road So Far Television can be perceived as a site of reflection of/on contemporary society, either in the form of news programs or reality TV, game shows, award ceremonies, movies, soap operas and series. However, it does not play a mere passive role, having also a part in constituting society and affecting culture. TV series, for example, namely those set in the present, not only constitute a place to discuss about everyday life but they also become part of it (and, in some cases, influence it: e.g. creating new trends in social behavior). CW’s Supernatural, created by Eric Kripke in 2005,1 is an example of this double function of serials, in the sense that it both showcases a world in turmoil and danger, evocative of present-day terrorism-induced anxieties and insecurities, and integrates what can be described as a post-9/11 culture, deeply marked, on the one hand, by the events of 2001 and synonymous to a culture of fear2 and, on the other, by a participatory impulse and an incredibly fast and extensive flow of information. Drawing inspiration from familiar urban legends, folklore and mythology, Supernatural revolves around two brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester, played by Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, respectively, who travel across the United States hunting creatures from the supernatural realm: monsters, ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters, werewolves, witches, pagan gods or even angels and demons. They are modern-day vigilantes or avengers that try to free the world from evil, thus fueling an instant analogy with the American crusade-like effort against terror(ism) “to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world” (Bush, 2001b). Despite privileging a 1 Supernatural first premiered in WB and was later integrated into newly formed CW. 2 See Frank Furedi (2002). The original version of the book (1997) precedes 9/11 but, as the author explains in the preface of this revised edition, written the day after the terrorist attack, the discussion about fear is both relevant and current. 2 horror-related thematic, the show is nevertheless characterized for combining various genres and showcasing a continuous playful game with genre conventions, intertextuality and metafiction, which grant originality and a certain edginess to the show, as well as momentarily break down the ‘fourth wall’ and transport the viewer to the world outside the screen. Supernatural’s success and longevity owes massively, in fact, to the use of popular culture references and a constant dialogue with contemporary society, cultural products and agents. This not only confers a specific tone to the series (ranging from serious to humoristic) but also helps bridge fiction and reality, hence establishing the show’s contemporariness. These references are employed as a tool to complement or develop the plot, identify characters, set the mood and pace of the scenes as well as, on an extradiegetic level, appeal to a broader audience. They pop up regularly throughout the show and are usually employed by the authors as inspiration for the title of an episode or directly built into the story, either as sound, background image or characters’ lines. In this article, I will depart from a study of the social, political and cultural context that led to the creation of Supernatural (and other similar works) to investigate how popular culture impacts on the world of the show. I will look into how that context is incorporated into the series not only through its storyline but also through the use of pop culture references, which both create and reinforce a sense of community amongst viewers, while simultaneously cementing the show’s place in today’s popular culture. In short, I will inquire into Supernatural’s place in contemporary pop culture and discuss how pop culture has influenced both the show itself and its reception. Post-Apocalypse Now As previously mentioned, Supernatural is strongly influenced by the horror film tradition; yet, the show also mixes various genres such as fantasy, drama, thriller, the road movie and comedy, that at times seem to be at odds with that primary label. Stacey Abbott, for instance, defines Supernatural as a “curious hybrid of horror, western, and melodrama” (Abbott, 2011: xv), thus bringing attention to the kaleidoscopic nature of the show, which plays with and blends many different visual and narrative strategies. Nevertheless, the most common label attributed to this long- running serial is still ‘horror’ most notably due to its thematic but also its aesthetics.3 3 Joseph Valezano III and Erika Engstrom claim that “[t]he aesthetic quality of the series borrows from the horror genre; filmed in dark, muted colors, the action often occurs during nightime and settings include haunted houses, cemeteries, and crypts. Special effects associated with monsters and ghosts, such as blood, 3 Nevertheless, in spite of this, it can be argued that Supernatural does not fully comply with the traditional description of horror as a cinematographic genre. The strategy of blending multiple genres is neither new nor unique, considering the limitations imposed by television upon shows that do not fit into mainstream categorizations. The horror genre has had a difficult transition from film to TV, mainly due to the many restrictions the latter medium entails – from program production to the type of network, censorship, publicity, scheduling, and audience – which may contribute to reducing its visibility and academic value.4 Cinema has in fact been deemed the most suitable place for horror, whilst TV has been perceived as a “para- site”, “a cultural site that is assumed to be alien to the genre and a space where horror supposedly does not belong” (Hills, 2005: 111). The instable relationship between horror and television has in turn led to the blurring of the boundaries between horror and other genres, namely the Gothic, so that a specific show may get a more positive response, “with ‘Gothic TV’ functioning as a discursive other to TV horror, the latter being associated with gore and low culture, and the former carrying connotations of historical tradition, and ‘restrained’ suggestion or implication rather than graphic monstrosity and splatter” (Hills, 2005: 120). Networks and producers therefore often tone down their product in order to avoid alienating a large segment of TV viewers. However, changes in the media industry and viewing practices need to be acknowledged as well when thinking about the growing presence of horror on television, for example: the emergence of subscription channels, which have broadened what is considered acceptable; technological advances that have decreased the distance between the quality one verifies in terms of image and special effects on big and small screen; and the instigation of fan participation (Jowett and Abbott, 2013). Initially, the creators of Supernatural tried to package and present each episode as the horror movie of the week. For that, they resorted to American folklore and urban legends, recapturing the well-known stories of Bloody Mary, the vanishing hitchhiker, the woman in white, Hookman or the frightening Scarecrow. Despite their unreal apparitions, mythical creatures like vampires and shapeshifters, and ‘black smoke’ representing demons that possess humans, further define the series as decidedly dark” (Valezano III and Engstrom, 2014: 555). 4 In his study about horror, Matt Hills points out that academic works about this genre often focus only on film, neglecting its presence as a TV category (Hills, 2005: 112). Even though genre categorization serves the purpose of bringing together works that share similar features; this classification process tends to be more difficult with television, which does not lend itself to broad categories like literature does (Feuer, 1992: 138).